Various surveys of millennia-old human artifacts, like those examined in this 2015 Nature study, suggest that humans have been aware of the benefits brought forth by the world’s bee population since the early Neolithic Old World and beyond. Since then, human societies by and large have been enjoying the fruit of the humble bee’s labor — literally and figuratively.

Bees have been pollinating and making honey for well over 100 million years, predating the early ages of human society by a longshot. The first record of humans keeping bees dates back all the way to around 6000 BC, long before the domestication of other animals like horses or common crops like apples or coffee beans.

Even before that, though, bees very well may have played a vital role in our earliest ancestors’ lives, according to a recent study by a UNLV anthropologist. The work shows that our ancient predecessors’ diets could have contained up to a whopping 15% honey, which has always been one of nature’s most calorie- and glucose-rich foods, perfect for the hunter-gatherer lifestyles of primitive man.

It’s well known that the human evolutionary story is one of brain size, and through ages and ages of human evolution, one thing is abundantly clear: the growth of our brains has largely been attributed to a surge in calorie consumption.

In some ways, this honey-driven evolution kickstarted the development of advanced human society by helping to give early humans the capacity they needed to survive, including improved hunting techniques and the ability to make fire.

With the development of human agriculture, the role of bees has only expanded. Today, bees account for up to 35 percent of the world’s food crops and three-fourths of all the world’s flowering plants depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. In other words, bee’s directly account for in every three bites of food!

From the big picture in their active role in the agricultural process through pollination to the smaller aspects in everyday usage of honey and beeswax, bees have been playing a leading role in the continuation of human life for millions of years.